Together, we have crossed a golden threshold.
More than 200,000 trees planted.
Did you know?: Every ONE GOLDEN THREAD piece purchased since day zero has planted a tree.
This milestone is not ours.
It’s ours, together, with you. To all the hands that touched making the threads, and to those wearing now 200,000 articles of clothing around the globe, we made this happen together.
And taking root, more than 200,000 living, breathing reminders that what we choose to create, and what we choose to consume, can give more back than it takes to create, back to nature.
Yet for me, this story began unfolding long before ONE GOLDEN THREAD.
Roots Before Threads
In 1965, my mother and father planted an olive tree in the front yard of our family home.
A tree for a new life. Mine.
This week, more than six decades later, my father and drove by our childhood home, and that baby Olive Tree is all grown, majestically there.
Standing. Rising. Witnessing.
It was beyond a cool father-son moment.
My mother was a fine artist, and nature was woven throughout her work.
This self-portrait painting from 30 years ago with golden threads of flowers rising from her hair inspires, and this painting resides in the Addressing Room in our Abbot Kinney Flagship.
Her message was consistent and simple:
We are no apart from nature. We are a part of nature.
Her art captured a living anthem of this mythos. Human forms became branches. Skin weaves as leaves as limbs. Breath and trees and bodies belonged to the same living language.
My father offered the lived version of that lesson.
He took us camping. Into rivers. Under trees. Into the wild.
Mom taught to see our connection to nature; Dad taught to experience it.
I wouldn’t understand how deeply those roots had taken hold until decades later.
Then, in 2016, I Learned Clothing Could Come From Trees
It blew my mind.
Trees could become fiber? Fiber could become fabric? Fabric could become what we wear against our skin?
It all came in rushed focus. I learned of Interbeing, its 14 precepts ensconced by Thích Nhất Hạnh, studied Biomickry, and began to understand the sensorial magic of Synesthesia. All which informed and led to the journey and creation of our One Golden Thread TreeSilk TM fabric formulation, blending European Beechtree fiber from Lenzing Austria with Supima Cotton, the "cashmere of cotton" from the Southwest state of Arizona where I was born.
All the while, I was transported back to childhood.
To my mother’s art.
To exploring nature under my father's Eagle Scout tuteledge.
To the olive tree.
Something finally clicked in that year, that was hiding in plain sight for my entire life.
What if business could be a collective force for social good? To not just look good, and feel good, but also truly do more than "good".
Where the model would truly innovate from nature, to connect our innate human nature, and replenish nature?
Not a linear supply chain ending in consumption.
Infinity built around reciprocity. Regenerosity around trees.
That became a foundational idea behind ONE GOLDEN THREAD.
So Why Plant Trees?
Because trees don’t simply make our world beautiful.
They make our world livable.
We sometimes call forests the lungs of the Earth, and while the science is more complex than the metaphor, the truth underneath it is extraordinary.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and store carbon. Through photosynthesis, they release oxygen. They cool landscapes, help regulate water, protect soil, support watersheds and create habitat for countless living beings.
A tree is never just a tree.
It is shelter. It shares food. It is soil. It is water. It is habitat. It is stored carbon. It is breath.
Forests are living communities.
Birds nest in their branches.
Animals travel beneath their canopies.
Insects, fungi and microorganisms build entire worlds around their roots.
Water moves through them.
Carbon is held within them.
And the breath moving through our lungs is connected to the same planetary cycles they help sustain.
Their breath. Our breath. One living system.
Planting trees alone won’t solve the climate crisis.
But protecting forests and restoring the right trees in the right places is one of nature’s most powerful tools for supporting biodiversity, healthy ecosystems and a livable planet.
And that is why where we plant matters as much as how many.
Regeneration: Give Back More Than It Takes to Create
Sustainability asks:
How do we take less?
Regeneration asks:
How do we give back more than it takes to create?
We’ve worked to make that philosophy measurable.
TreeSilk™ begins with tree-derived fiber, including regenerative beech.
From the fiber of one beech tree, we can create at least 108 TreeShirts.
And for every item we sell—not only TreeShirts—we plant another tree.
Trees Are Silent Spirit Walkers
The more I learn about trees, the more mystical they become.
A forest may look like thousands of individuals.
Look closer and you discover relationship everywhere.
And sometimes, high above us, neighboring trees create spaces between their canopies—a phenomenon known as crown shyness—leaving rivers of light between their limbs.
Listen to the whistling - trees have much to teach us.
Silent spirit walkers,
rooted below,
reaching above.
Giving shelter without asking.
Making room for light.
Their limbs beside our limbs.
Their breath inside our breath.
Different forms.
One nature.
How & Where Do We Plant?
Through our deep partnership with One Tree Planted, the esteemed NGO that successfully plants our trees worldwide, we've supported projects to reforest the lungs of the Earth in the Amazon, address fire ravaged areas in Hawaii and Bali, Portugal and Northern California, and reconnected broken Habitat corridors in Nepal.
Disparate landscapes need different kinds of restoration, which is why our planting is intentional.
Trees can restore degraded ecosystems, support watersheds, rebuild biodiversity and provide critical habitat.
And sometimes planting trees can help reconnect what human activity has separated.
Our next chapter brings us to India, where our year-end planting will support restoration connected to a river habitat corridor—helping reconnect habitat so wildlife can move more safely through the landscape.
That is regeneration too.
Not simply:
How many trees can we plant?
But:
What life can those trees reconnect?
Animal to habitat.
Forest to forest.
River to ecosystem.
Humanity to nature.
To read more about impact and see the certifications of exactly where we have planted, it's all here.
The Tree My Parents Planted Became a Forest
I will always think about that olive tree.
My parents planted one tree to honor the beginning of one life.
They couldn’t have known where that gesture might lead.
That their son would someday discover clothing could be made from trees.
That my mother’s art and my father’s adventures in nature would become part of the DNA of a company.
Maybe that’s one of the greatest lessons trees offer us:
We rarely know how far a gesture will grow.
A tree.
An idea.
A child.
A company.
A possibility.
Plant it with intention.
Give it roots.
Give it light.
And let life do what life knows how to do.
Grow.
As our human nature as one, connecting us all.
